How Does Shakespeare Portray Lady Macbeth?

Lady Macbeth plays the important role in the play of encouraging Macbeth to carry out the regicide. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth have a strong bond at the beginning of the play, which would have been incredibly unusual to audiences in the Elizabethan Era.
She is presented as more and more evil as the play goes on, which eventually leads to her own demise.

At the beginning of Act 1 Scene 5, Lady Macbeth is reading a letter from her husband, and awaiting his return from battle.

This fulfills our expectations of what she should be doing, due to the thoughts and jobs of women in the Elizabethan era. The role of females was the stay home while the husband was out working or fighting, to look after the house. They were seen as the gentle and nurturing gender, doing the less-important task of cleaning, and cooking all the meals for their husband. They were not seen as equals. However, in the letter, Macbeth refers to his wife as his “partner in greatness”.

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The word “partner” indicates to the audience that Macbeth sees her as an equal, while “greatness” shows that he believes in her to assist him in their triumphs, and they both share this ambition.

She begins her soliloquy in response to the letter and the first thing we see is she believes her husband to be a kind, good man, by saying that he is “full o’th’milk of human kindness”. However, she goes on to explain that while this may be good in some cases, she sees it as being his downfall.

This would make sense to the audience at the time, because the women were meant to be the kind ones while the men stayed strong, kindness being seen as a weakness for them.

But as for our further impressions, we see that her first thought after the letter is the “nearest way” and how her husband wouldn’t take it due to his weakness. The “nearest way” refers to killing king Duncan in order for Macbeth to become king – her first thought was of murder. She decides that she “may pour my spirits in thine ear”, to encourage Macbeth to murder Duncan. She is deciding to take the lead to get what she wants and help inspire Macbeth’s “volting ambition”. This is our first realization that Lady Macbeth is the opposite of how a woman should be.

After a messenger enters and tells her that King Duncan will be staying at the castle that night, she begins another soliloquy. It begins with Lady Macbeth saying that “The raven is hoarse”. Ravens are associated with death, since they are commonly seen pecking at decaying bodies on battlefields. She says the raven has lost its voice through the amount of crowing, meaning that the death of Duncan is inevitable.

She calls to spirits to “unsex” her, removing all female weaknesses, from her to help her to commit the deed herself, after doubting Macbeth. This includes “taking (her) milk for gall”, meaning the most feminine aspect of her, her milk for a child, she wants to be turned into a poison.
Shakespeare possibly shows Lady Macbeth going to spirits for help here in order to satisfy King James’s love for the supernatural. The play was written to be shown to him, so elements that James considered himself an expert on were added in, such as ghosts and witches. King James had even written a book on the supernatural, so Shakespeare was adding in these things to play up to him.

When Macbeth returns home, Lady Macbeth immediately asks when Duncan is leaving, then says “O, never shall sun that morrow see”, telling Macbeth that the King won’t leave alive. There’s a small section of the Holinshed Chronicles that indicates Lady Macbeth wanted Duncan to be killed for her own reasons rather than her husband’s. Holinshed suggests the Lady Macbeth encouraged Macbeth to kill Duncan and that she was ambitious for the crown, writing “…his wife lay sore upon him to attempt the thing, as she that was very ambitious, burning in unquenchable desire to bear the name of the queen.” We notice her effort put into encouraging Macbeth to do the deed, so this is understandably linked with her powerful personality.

When Duncan arrives, Macbeth tells his wife privately that “We will proceed no further in this business”, dismissing the idea of killing his friend. However, Lady Macbeth proceeds to do what she said she would, beginning to encourage him. She starts by telling him that “From this time, such I account thy love”, emotionally blackmailing him by saying that he doesn’t love her if he doesn’t do the deed. She taunts him, saying he isn’t brave enough to do it, which is ironic due to the compliments he received from a sergeant at the beginning of the play when he was addressed as “brave Macbeth” and that “well he deserves that name”.

She begins to explain how she “have given suck”, indicating that she may have had a child at some point. Then, the shocking imagery that Lady Macbeth would have “pluck'd (her) nipple from his boneless gums, and dash'd the brains out” of the baby, if she had sworn to it. This contradicts every motherly element of a woman and confirms she lacks them and is proud that she doesn’t have those elements. The witches are also lacking femininity. Banquo said that they “should be women”, but are not, so it could possibly show her as containing the same similarities and evil as them.

Lady Macbeth has taken control of the situation. She explains the entire plan for the murder to him, but his response is “Bring forth men-children only”. This could be his way of trying to show Lady Macbeth that this a man’s job, and he is still in charge. It could also mean that her words got to him, and he wants to prove himself to her.

After the murder has taken place, Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth that she would have done the murder herself, had Duncan not “resembled (her) father as he slept’. It’s likely that this was her excuse for realizing she was too afraid to do it herself and has experienced a weakness that she didn’t want to show to her husband. This is the first time in the play she begins to show stress and emotion. Stichomythia is used to indicate the stress and tension between both of them, constantly talking over each other in the fear of being discovered.

She switches back to her controlling self when she realizes Macbeth had brought the daggers from the bedroom. She tells him he is “Infirm of purpose”. However, while this could be interpreted as her being annoyed that he did not do what he was supposed to, it could also be that she does not want to enter the room again due to her own fear, so she is dismayed that she will have to.

When Macbeth plans to kill Banquo, we begin to see the power shift. He doesn’t tell his wife of the plan, despite her being his “partner in greatness”. This leads us to believe his feelings toward her may have changed. When questioned about his recent behavior by Lady Macbeth, he answers by saying “So full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife’, telling her that his mind is still on the murder and there is nothing else happening.

Banquo is killed, and Macbeth sees his ghost appear while hosting a banquet. He becomes afraid and begins to shout at the ghost, in front of all the guests. Lady Macbeth is quick to tell the guests “my lord is often thus, And hath been from his youth”. She asks him again if he is a man, in an effort to make him pull himself together. Her fears are clearly shown in her panic to help him to calm down, worrying that he may say something that will show the murder was their doing.